


maybe the fog that I’ve been living in (has lifted for the first time in weeks)

by jessicamiriamdrew



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 16:48:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12708945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessicamiriamdrew/pseuds/jessicamiriamdrew
Summary: Ash Tyler works through the aftermath of his rape and trauma and his burgeoning feelings for his captain.





	maybe the fog that I’ve been living in (has lifted for the first time in weeks)

**Author's Note:**

> honestly i'm just surprised it took me so long to write this. rated m to be safe
> 
> anyway it's divergent post 1x7, because i love aus and i wrote 98% of this before the mid season finale aired, so
> 
> discussion of past rape and sexual abuse, but not super explicit. a little suicide ideation.
> 
> the title is from now that it's too late maria by dawes.

Ash has been in love, but that was before, before he spent seven months being tortured and raped. He feels guilt when he remembers how he wished for death instead of another night of having pleasure ripped out of him. Waking up, back in that cell, somehow clothed but with a patchwork memory.

She always healed anything that would scar and he thinks that hinders him now. The memories are real, if the panic attacks are any indication, but the lack of physical evidence makes him doubt.

If there’s no sign, it couldn’t have been so bad. Maybe he wanted it.

At least, he thinks on the nights when everything melds together, his mother didn’t survive to see him so broken.

-

His ship therapist calls it transference, when he admits to thinking about Captain Lorca. “He rescued you. It’s only natural.”

Ash remembers calling him the right man, and vomits in the trash can. He wipes the back of his mouth with his hand, and again asks for reassurance that the sessions are confidential.

She never gets frustrated that he asks multiple times, simply answering him yes, unless he’s a danger to himself or others.

“I don’t want to die,” he says. Ash never does in the bright lights of the ship, when there are people all around.

It’s only at night, when there’s silence and emptiness that he imagines the relief of having been murdered eight months ago.

-

The loops, when Stamets explains them for the final time, make him shudder. How drunk he must have been to get close to someone, even if it is Michael, who he trusts more than most. She doesn’t want to discuss it; he’s grateful that her own pain makes her as unavailable as his own.

But it’s the tales of Mudd’s fascination with Lorca’s death that make anxiety settle into his skin. He wakes up in the night convinced Lorca is dead, that L’Rell will burst into the room, and that the real time loop is his trauma repeating every night.

-

He’s Chief of Security, sure, but he’s certain that he should lurk less behind Lorca. Ash’s job is security for the whole ship and crew, not only Lorca.

But Lorca is blasé about danger, and maybe Lorca would kill himself before letting himself get captured again, but Ash can’t process that kind of loss.

This is how he justifies sitting outside Lorca’s quarters at three am. It’s not like he’s going to sleep tonight: the panic attack he had in his quarters means he can’t step inside and Ash doesn’t feel comfortable sleeping around anyone, even though there are comfy chairs hidden on one of the observation decks.

If someone or something comes for Lorca, if another madman bursts onto the ship, at least he has a chance to save Lorca. He props his head in one hand, the existential lassitude threatening to overturn his desire to keep watch.

-

It’s 3:35 am when he jolts awake from a nightmare that he hadn’t realized he’d fallen into. Ash doesn’t know he made a noise until Lorca steps into the hallway, phaser on his hip.

“Lieutenant, care to tell me why you’re standing guard in the middle of the night?”

The sight of Lorca in pajamas, fleet issue as they are, almost makes Ash giggle. The idea that Lorca rests—that any of them can, in a war zone—is incongruous.

He stands up, hearing muscles and joints pop, and falters with his words. Lorca’s hand relaxes on the phaser, and inclines his head.

“If you’re going to do this, may as well do it where no one will trip.”

Ash follows him, grateful for the reminder that he is noticed, that Lorca notices him.

-

On the nights Ash can’t sleep from nightmares or panic attacks or whatever else his brain throws at him, Lorca simply opens the door when Ash punches in his code. Lorca doesn’t ask questions that Ash has yet to tackle on his own terms, just lets him sit on whatever spot is most comfortable and do what he must to get through the night.

He suspects Lorca is the only one on this ship who sleeps as little as he does, but it’s still a shock when Lorca tells him he’s going to bed. Ash is on the couch in Lorca’s bedroom—it’s been a particularly excruciating set of nightmares the last few days—but he’s not willing to push those limits too far.

There’s some kind of meaning there but Ash can’t parse it, not after months of Klingon only interaction and the forced reintegration to Starfleet society.

“Stay or not.” Lorca turns away from him, stripping off his undershirt, and Ash stares at the scars in the spine of Lorca’s back. He doesn’t ask; he would never demand something so personal, but there’s a creeping ache in his fingers.

He falls asleep on Lorca’s couch to the soft dissonance of Lorca’s snores, a strange peace blooming within his chest.

-

“I shouldn’t,” he says when Lorca pours him a whiskey.

Lorca shrugs at him. “Won’t force you to drink it, but you’re not on duty.” Lorca sips on his own, feet on the coffee table in a way more resigned than smug. The simulations were rough today, and they’re both feeling off balance.

Ash takes a sip, then another, before placing it back on the table. He can’t risk more than that, yet, not with Lorca sitting so close to him.

He doesn’t know what it means that Lorca was waiting for him. Not that Lorca wasn’t surprised to see him, but that Lorca had been expectant, perhaps worried Ash wouldn’t show.

The words that Lorca says are fragmented by Ash’s neurons, his mind drifting.

“Come back to me,” Lorca says, cutting through the mental mists, and Ash does. He’s always drawn here, to Lorca’s side, though he spends time with Michael and Tilly.

He wants to kiss Lorca. Maybe he shouldn’t want to. It’s been six months of imagining the furrow of Lorca’s brows, the possibility of a sigh, a hand touching his own.

They’re facing each other, Lorca’s legs shifted onto the couch, and it isn’t like the Battle of the Binary Stars never happened. But he can see the stars reflected in Lorca’s damaged eyes, and feel the for now ceaseless pulse as he runs his fingers across Lorca’s wrist.

Ash leans in half way, but Lorca doesn’t adjust him to meet him. He doesn’t back away either though and that’s fine. Their lips touch, and Ash expects the fires of trauma to roar in his mind, but all he gets is Lorca’s lopsided smile against his mouth.

They kiss again, a bit deeper, and that rush of urgency he feels consumed by is pushing forward. Lorca pulls back just as Ash is planning on scooting closer.

“We have time,” Lorca says. They’re at war, something they both intimately know the uncertainty of, but he trusts that Lorca means what he says even if he can’t guarantee it.

-

There aren’t soft smiles on the bridge, though Lorca gives him as many carefully casual touches as is permissible. Ash thinks Michael knows, but he knows now that she loved her captain. He, in turn, watches the sparks between her and her cadet roommate.

He sleeps in his quarters some nights, undisturbed by night terrors, and on the nights he is, Lorca’s quarters admit him automatically. 

Lorca is in the shower when he lets himself in and their standard routine has shifted from the couch to the bed. Ash knows about the phaser: he also knows the light is only set to green when he’s around.

He tosses his undershirt to the floor, away from Lorca’s side of the bed. Lorca’s sheets are crisp on his skin but softer than his own. The lazy drifting Ash is awoken from by Lorca curling up next to him is pleasant. Somehow Lorca is never surprised by Ash’s presence in his bed. “Go back to sleep,” Lorca says, dropping a kiss to the back of his neck. The warm, slightly damp arm that slides across his stomach isn’t a threat.

With Lorca tucked around him, Ash finally feels safe.

**Author's Note:**

> hello i love ash tyler and gabriel lorca good bye


End file.
